It is alarming that Rocketship can be allowed to grow as it is – they just received city approval for a contested area of public land in San Jose for another campus while they already have 7 running. Rocketship’s strag

Rocketship says parents have a quota for volunteer hours – 30 per year to be exact. The most recent “volunteer” opportunity afforded to me was that I would get 5 hours for EVERY adult I brought with me to this event – that’s why there is always a sea of purple where ever Rocketship tries to “make a stand” at the expense of the public. If public school teachers all had this kind of parent engagement in the children’s actual learning and not the school’s political demonstrations, the children would be much better served. I believe the elected/appointed officials that are placed on the city council and board of education in San Jose are simply being politicians – say or do anything that will get them “cheers.”

Scheduled visits the media make mean nothing. Be a teacher or a student or a parent. I had my son at two of the campuses before I finally pulled him out midyear and placed him in a regular public school. No attention is being made to the numbers of teachers or families who defect from the school. They claim they need 20 more campuses when their current seven aren’t even full! Further they pander to parents as often as they can to “recruit” because they don’t have enough applicants. Their biggest “group” of applicants are kindergartners whom I’m sure are picked up from visiting Head Start Centers throughout Santa Clara County.

The “model” needs to be scrutinized. Rocketship has no model – in the few years they have been in operation they have constantly changed things up because they really aren’t producing the results they expect, they call it “innovation” all while parents have no input or informed of these “changes” until the day before the “changes” go into affect.

With a stripped-down teach-for-the-test curriculum that requires longer days for students and insame amounts of uselss, busy “homework,” you can’t expect to encourage the students to be innovative when art and music fall to the wayside as well as allowing time for constructive chores or freetime during weekends or vacations. My son was one of the top-performing kids in his grade level, and was most diligent with completing the really unnecessary amounts of homework and even he had trouble finishing many times – at 3rd grade! I haven’t been able to have him fold his own clothes or help with dinner preparation which I believe are just as important in character development as any “words” written on cheap paper posted on any of the Rocketship walls.

Even 15 minutes of “tangible Lego time” would help the kids get some enjoyment and encourage creativity. STEM subjects are the pieces that will be needed in most jobs today and in the future. STEAM (A for Art) is the more accurate idea – as art is necessary for innovation and what will prepare children today for in-demand jobs today and in the next decade. We don’t even have to say college. College is absolutely necessary.

Irony: the same companies and executives who support Rocketship operate/live in the affluent counties that have rejected Rocketship from entering their own neighborhoods. If Rocketship’s ideas are really valuable, you would think they would send their own children to those campuses.

Rocketship is just a business reaping public funds at the expense of property tax payers, at the same eradicating public education, and preying on the most vulnerable – the young children of the non-English speaking poor and being detrimental for their futures.

“they just received city approval for a contested area of public land in San Jose”

What happens to the land when they close? Do they as a ‘public’ charter have to pay property taxes? I wonder… if I had that public land, I’d turn it into a public garden. That would pay more in dividends for the community than a Rocketship school. Time for Rocketship to blast off.

While I disagree with a lot of Rocketships strategies I
don’t think there’s anything inherently evil with them. I think
they do have the best of intentions. Rocketship is a non-profit, so
I’m not sure what evidence there is to suggest that their motives
are profit-driven. Experimenting with different models and looking
for ways to deliver an excellent education to every student should
be celebrated, not criticized. I would not send my daughter to
Rocketship, so by that criteria I think they are failing so far in
their mission. There are a number of public school that I also
would not send my daughter to. In both cases I hope that the
schools change, but I would prefer to see people working to
encourage that change then simply attacking the schools and the
most-likely well intentioned people at those schools.

Non Profit is just a tax designation (usually 501 c 3). They can and do generate revenue. They can and do use the money to further the company, pay salaries, expand, purchase things, etc. They do not pay out dividends to shareholders or owners.

That’s true, but if the goal of the organization were to maximize profits then a for-profit model would be more appropriate. A non-profit model is an indication that the organization is not primarily motivated by profit.

I don’t know what their true intentions are, but I don’t think there’s any evidence suggesting that their intentions are primarily profit-driven. If there is evidence suggesting that then I would be interested in seeing it.

To reiterate, having a tax exempt status “non-profit” can be highly profitable with the “owners”, i.e., those in charge making a ton of money not only for themselves but for those “contractors” i.e., family, friends and other extended connections who receive said no bid contracts which by the way are paid out of public monies. Read through this blog to see the many examples of that. What ever happened to fiscal responsibility by those who accept public monies. Just what we need, more hogs sucking on the government tit-and hogs they are.

They may say they have noble intentions but follow the money and you will find that the vast majority are in it for monetary gains that they couldn’t get if working in a public school system (due to oversight by the local school boards).

And yes there is plenty of examples of non-profits soaking up the lucre. Do a search and in less than a second you will have thousands of sources to look into.

“Rocketship is just a business reaping public funds at the expense of property tax payers, at the same eradicating public education, and preying on the most vulnerable – the young children of the non-English speaking poor and being detrimental for their futures.”

and from the comments:

“The vulnerable are being preyed upon by people looking for profit.”

Both claims imply bad intentions are unfounded as far as I can tell with regard to Rocketship.

I completely agree that “a school with no music or art is not a model for the future” and I realize that the competitive landscape of charters is forcing such decisions on schools. I just want people to deal with the facts of the situation rather than demonizing the other side so that well-informed decisions can be made.

Well most of them probably send their kids to private schools, which are more akin to charters than public schools, but I agree that you really shouldn’t be starting a school that you would not send your own child to.

Agree partly…the charters I know of are far from the quality of private schools. Many of the public schools in my state are closer to private schools than charters…strict test prep, military style behavior codes, very far from a private milieu.

Profit is built into the Rocketship business model. It’s a for profit company called Dreambox created by the Rocketship leaders and investors. As Rocketships expands, and with the adoption of the national common core standards, there is a huge built in market for the tools developed by Dreambox. The public pays for widespread beta testing In the taxpayer funded schools and the kids are their unpaid beta testers. Brilliant!

Typical charter school business foolishness. Give the losers more, isn’t that the American way now? Those that push them will not have them in their neighborhood, that is normal for them. You take the trash in your neighborhood, not in mine. Need more schools even though we cannot fill those we have. We need more market share. This is Wall Street. Just think the financial crash and this is the education crash.

“For two hours each day, students are taught by computers designed to meet children at their particular level and drill them in rote skills like addition or subtraction. They spend the rest of the day in more typical classrooms with teachers, tackling more complex work like critical thinking.”
Pathetic.

TE,
Careful with the sentence construction, eh? “Much of want (sic) he learned in high school he did out of the building” So if he was out of the building then he wasn’t “in” high school. Perhaps better said “. . . what he learned while he was a secondary student he did out of the building.”–Just funnin ya, eh!
Duane

If their ideas are really valuable they wouldn’t need a government subsidy to keep going, they would charge tuition, even offer scholarships in the great marketplace of education. Hell, the Catholics have been doing that for eons (even though they wouldn’t accept half of the students who are in public education but that’s their prerogative being a private, albeit unfortunately a tax exempt, institution.)

Charter schools are big busine$$ and they mean business when they ask parents to recruit more families to their schools. One parent I know personally has one child in public, the other in charter (Great Hearts). She is co-president of public school PTO. Overtly, she talks up the charter to public school parents, openly recruiting them. It’s as if there’s a quota parents are pursuing. This charter expects parents to make additional contributions $$ to the school, too. Homework typically exceeds 2 hours for even the youngest (7 days a week!), projects are so excessive, parental involvement is excruciatingly overwhelming to the families and often students feel isolated from their neighborhood friends. Hardly any time left over to go out and play and be kids. Some may say this is no big deal, but it’s worth noting. Socializing is a huge part of education. Pursuing the almight curriculum, status and prestige in pesky charters is far less important to the healthy development of a child. It merely serves the egos of parents and confounds the children. Public schools perform a much greater good than meets the eye. IMHO.